The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.

The Good Society, ch. 1 (1991)

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.

Habits of the Heart, pt. 1, ch. 3 (1985)

Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.

Habits of the Heart, pt. 1, ch. 3 (1985)

While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.